“The political scope of the recommendation to create a European public infrastructure for vaccines and medicines is high”points out Massimo Florio, member of the ForumDD and initiator of the proposal to create a European public infrastructure for health. “An important positive sign. However, it risks getting lost, given the long-winded size (617 points) of the Report. The same arguments are sometimes contradictory and, in particular, sometimes an uncritically positive judgment is given on intellectual property rights as a driving force for the development of vaccines, while acknowledging that patents have limited access to vaccines in the world. It takes more courage to change the model of biomedical innovation”.
Indeed, the Report, while acknowledging that patent exclusivity can limit the market and access to medicines, states that the patent system encourages companies to innovate in the public interest. And while reiterating the European Parliament’s position (not endorsed by the Commission) of temporary suspension of patents on Covid-19 vaccines to allow access to production in the poorest countries, it is argued, moreover with twisted language, that compulsory licenses could be inadequate to increase the availability of vaccines.
“We are only at the beginning of the work, but the result obtained shows that there are no unbeatable Goliaths even at the level of the whole of Europe”, is the comment of Fabrizio Barca, co-coordinator of ForumDD. «The most conservative and monopolistic part of the pharmaceutical business world has mobilized for the European Parliament Report to lift a paean to their action which has seen vaccines denied to a part of the world and spending, all of us, disproportionate and unfair amounts. And yet, the message of reason is to some extent past. Now we must multiply our eyes and our pressure to dissolve the ambiguities on patents when based on research and public funding».
The Inequalities and Diversity Forum will write again to all Italian MEPs to ask them to commit themselves to ensuring that no steps backwards are taken on public research in the plenary vote and to ensure that the contradictions now present are resolved.
Meanwhile, on the occasion of the vote in the European Parliament of the Report on the lessons of the Covid-19 pandemic, the ForumDD launched with a documentary countryside “Health common good”, per strengthen the attention of MEPs and the public on the urgency of focusing research more on the public interest and on the proposal of an autonomous and non-profit European public infrastructure for the development of new medicines and vaccines. Published the Report, the documentary helps to understand its importance and to grasp the innovations. It also allows you to disseminate information and mobilize even more in anticipation of the debate in the assembly of the European Parliament. To support the campaign, all citizens can also sign the petition “A European infrastructure for vaccines, drugs and biomedical innovation”, which has already received the signature of important personalities and associations who have been committed for years to the right to public health.
Credits: opening photo by Guillaume Perigois on Unsplash